He pulls his hand out of mine. 'Stay here.' He takes his rucksack off his shoulder and slings it into the grass at my feet. 'I won't be long. One cigarette.'

'OK.'

'Actually, why don't you wait for me at the wall? Then I won't have to retrace my steps. It'll save time. If I want to catch this train ' His tone is brisk and businesslike, as if this is just an ordinary day, as if we'll see each other again tomorrow.

I say, 'Sure. Fine. I'll wait for you at the wall.'

'Great.'

He strides off towards the house, breaking into an irregular run. The windows have started to fade now. But the unease stays with me, even though the flat fire on the glass has died.

I remember suddenly that my special box is inside but it's safe there. I'll get it later, when he's gone. I watch him until he slides in through the back door. Then I pick up his rucksack and make my way diagonally through the trees, turning my back on Tyme's End.

I wait for him at the wall. He doesn't take that long fifteen minutes, maybe and then he's walking towards me, hurrying, with his hands in his pockets and his head down, as if he's making an effort not to look back. He smiles when he sees me, and reaches out to take his rucksack. I can smell the smoke on his clothes, but in the fresh air it's not as bitter as normal; it's more like woodsmoke or a bonfire. He pushes me forward, so I almost trip and have to brace myself against the wall. It's cold and wet under my hands, like damp sand. 'Come on. Let's go. I'll miss the train.'

'OK, OK,' I say. 'If you make me break an ankle there'll be all sorts of complications and it'll take even longer.' It's meant to be a joke, but it just sounds petulant. I can't help it; I don't want him to go. I hope he does miss the train.

We walk down the High Street. I want him to take my hand, but he doesn't. There's hardly any traffic, but I can smell petrol. It makes me feel queasy.

He's biting his lip, frowning. When he glances sideways he sees me looking at him and looks away.

We don't say anything until we get to the station. The ticket office is closed, but the gate on to the platform is open, and the boards are flashing up the train to London. He says, 'That's the one. I have to change at Tonbridge.'

We've only got seven minutes. I feel my throat tightening and tightening. I want to turn round and walk away. I want to go with him.

'Bibi,' he says. He's talking very softly, as if he doesn't want to be overheard, but there's no one else around. 'Listen to me. I wanted to say . . . You belong here, OK? Even if you don't always live here, in England, you've got as much right to be here as anyone else.'

'OK.'

'And I meant it, about Tyme's End. The land, the river it'll be yours. It'll be really yours. As much yours as it was mine, or my grandfather's, or H. J. Martin's. Don't keep telling yourself you belong somewhere else, because you don't. Inheritances don't always go through bloodlines.'

I'm not completely sure what he means with that last sentence; but he's talking so earnestly, carefully, looking straight into my eyes, that I think I understand what he's trying to tell me.

'And the things you don't know . . .' He pauses, and, without quite knowing how, I realise he's talking about my mum, my real mum. 'Don't let them haunt you. Don't let anything haunt you.'

'Right.'

'But don't forget, either. The past does matter. But not as much as the present.'

'OK.'

He stares at me. There's a pause; then, suddenly, it's like he can see my expression. He rubs his forehead with his hand, laughing. He's got a smear of something dark on his hand, like mould. 'All right. I just needed to give you the benefit of my superior wisdom.'

'Was that all of it? Eleven years' worth?'

'Don't be a smart-arse.' He shakes his head. 'I did mean it, though.'

'Yeah, it was really . . . interesting.'

We look at each other, and we both grin.

'OK,' he says. 'I'd better go.'

'Go on then.'

'OK, I will.' But he doesn't move. Then he grimaces and digs quickly in the back pocket of his jeans. 'Shit. Sorry, I '

He's holding something out to me: familiar glossy rectangles, the top one shiny ochre and brown.

My photos. I meet his gaze and I don't know what my face is doing.

'I'm so sorry. I took them out of the box to have a look, and I must've forgotten to put them back. Do you mind?'

'No,' I say. 'I'm glad.'

He smiles at me. I take the photos and hold them gently, making sure I don't make fingerprints on them. He says, 'Thanks. Sorry. Was that out of order?'

'Oliver,' I say. 'I'm glad.' And I don't know why, but I am. It's as if he's given them to me, like a gift. I think of him flipping through them no, staring, holding them up to his eyes as if he could get closer than the camera was, the way I do and it makes me feel odd and surprised and free.

'My train,' he says. 'I don't want to miss it.'

'Do you wait ' I feel panicky, like I've forgotten something. 'Your email or something mobile number '

'Give me yours,' he says. 'I'll text you. But I had to borrow a cellphone from a friend damn, that reminds me, I'll have to post it back to him so don't save the number.'

I give him my mobile number, and by the time he's put it into his phone the recorded announcement is saying, 'The train now approaching platform one . . .' I can't see the train yet, but the rails are hissing and singing.

'Promise you'll text me.'

'I promise. From the train, I expect.'

I laugh, but not for very long. The train's going to come, any second now.

He says, 'Goodbye, beloved.'

Then he kisses me.

And this time it's a proper kiss.

The train comes. I feel it rumbling under my feet, and Oliver pushes me away. I hold on to him for as long as I can, and then I stand with my arms at my sides, my hands empty, watching him run through the gate on to the platform. He smacks the button next to the train door with the flat of his hand and steps through it as soon as it opens. Then he stands looking out, his hand raised in a kind of frozen wave. I can feel myself smiling and crying, both at once, because I don't want him to leave but I'm ridiculously, impossibly happy. I wave back.

Then, before the train goes, I turn around and walk away.

My heart's racing. I can still taste Oliver's mouth the bitterness of smoke, and the staleness of neither of us having slept properly, and champagne, river-water, strawberries.

It's already getting warm. The long sideways shadows are starting to recede. I turn my head towards the light. I want to spin and jump and shout, and there's no one around, so I do.

I'm in a kind of daze, light-headed and thirsty. I don't know where I'm going, but I bounce and jump and tap-step-ball-change all the way down the High Street. Where I could turn right to go home I carry on walking, because once I have a shower and go to bed this feeling will go and never come back. I want to hang on to it for as long as I can. I try to remember what the kiss was like, but it's already slipping away, and last night is a blur of champagne and silver water. All I know is that it happened.

But right now that's enough.

I stop, squeeze my eyes shut, and try to see Oliver's face. I can still smell him: the bonfire scent of smoke, the sourness of petrol fumes . . . I try to hear his voice, the way his American accent came and went. I play our conversation over in my head, the last few seconds before he kissed me. I gave him my mobile number, and then he said goodbye, and then . . .

After a while I open my eyes. I'm still standing on the pavement, on my own.

I get my phone out of my pocket and turn it on, just in case. There are three voicemail messages, a text from Sam (WHERE R U? M AND D NOT HAPPY!) and another one from Mum (PLEASE CALL HOME, WE WANT TO KNOW YOU'RE OK). Oh, bugger. I grit my teeth and dial our landline number, but I can't bring myself to press the call button. Anyway, it's only ten past six. They'll be asleep.

I walk along the High Street, holding my mobile in my hand so that if Oliver does call I'll be able to answer right away. He said he'd text me from the train. I thought he was joking, but maybe he wasn't. I hope he wasn't. I really hope The phone beeps. It makes me jump. I almost drop it in the gutter.

A text message. It has to be Oliver. I hear myself make a noise like a sob, but I'm laughing, not crying. I take a deep breath and try to steady myself, because it might only say AM SAFELY ON TRAIN or HAVE BOOKED FLIGHT SUCCESSFULLY. I feel shaky, like I'm getting exam results.

I'M SORRY. GO STRAIGHT HOME.

I read it again.

It still says, I'M SORRY. GO STRAIGHT HOME.

What the hell ? I don't get it. I want to call him back, but he's withheld his number. Why would he withhold the number? I know he said it was his mate's phone, but . . . Maybe he didn't mean to. Or maybe it isn't Oliver at all; maybe it's someone from school winding me up, or just a wrong number.

I'M SORRY. GO STRAIGHT HOME.

All of a sudden I feel strange, as if the hangover and sleepless night have finally caught up with me. The sun's too bright, and my mouth is dry, and there's a bitter, itchy smell in the air that makes me want to cough. I put my phone back in my pocket. I'M SORRY. Oliver's regretting everything having kissed me, having stayed out all night . . . I feel a sharp edge in my throat, like dust. I look into the sun until my eyes start to water. It's starting to cloud over; there's a thin haze in the air, spreading out over the sky. Further down the High Street, to the left, behind the trees, someone's having a bonfire. The column of smoke is grey in the sunlight, billowing upwards. He's sorry. He's sorry he kissed me. He probably wishes he'd never met me. It's the worst thing he could have said. I blink the tears out of my eyes and turn round to go home.

But something niggles at me, making me twist and look over my shoulder at the smoke. I stare at it, shading my eyes, because there's something I start to run.

A moment ago I was weightless, skimming the surface of the pavement like someone had turned gravity off; but now it's like I'm running on sand. GO STRAIGHT HOME. He couldn't have. He couldn't have I can smell the fire from here. I keep running, my head bent, concentrating on keeping my feet going, and when I look up again the smoke has thickened and darkened. I'M SORRY.

I get to the gates of Tyme's End and stop, breathing so hard my lungs hurt. Through the gates I can see the smoke pouring upwards in a high grey cloud, so wide and blurred I can't believe I thought it was a bonfire. The stink of it is unmistakable. Beyond the trees there are flickers of gold, glints of copper and red, so that if it wasn't for the smoke and the noise you'd almost think it was the sunrise reflected in the windows. The building rumbles. I lean forward through the bars, trying to get a better view, but the trees are in the way. Oh my God.

Tyme's End is on fire. Tyme's End, that Oliver said he'd give to me.

I reach for my phone. I've never made a 999 call before, and my hands are shaking. The first time I try I press the 8 instead of the 9. I have to stop and take a deep breath.

I look down at my hand, clenched and pale round my phone. Something stops me trying again.

He set it alight on purpose. He planned it. He already knew, yesterday, when he bought the petrol, when he said it was for the lawnmower . . . This morning, when he said he was going for a last cigarette, to say goodbye to the place . . . I can see him in my mind's eye, getting the petrol out from behind the secret door, splashing it carefully over the furniture, flicking his cigarette lighter open, the silver glinting in the light of the sunrise and him standing in the doorway, dropping the lighter, watching a line of flame slide over the floor. And then he'd have run, ducking swiftly out of the side door, hurrying to catch me up, trying not to look back.

This is what he's sorry for. Nothing else.

Goodbye, beloved.

I can taste woodsmoke. I lean my forehead against the bars of the gate and start to laugh.

I hear the siren coming down the road but I don't turn to look. The smoke haemorrhages into the sky, spreading out and over me like a ceiling. I'm clutching the bars of the gate with my hands, like a prisoner looking out of a window, but I'm still laughing. I can't help it. Even when I hear the fire engine right behind me, the siren blaring through my head, I can't stop. It's only when I hear it brake that I realise I have to leave, before someone decides I'm drunk and makes me call my parents. I take one last look at Tyme's End, and then I turn and run past the fire engine.

Oh, God. When I get home I'm going to get bollocked for staying out all night. There'll probably be a fight. And this time I won't be able to run away to Tyme's End, because it's on fire.

And I remember, with a funny kind of jolt, that my papers my special box are in there too. Oliver must have left them there on purpose. He kept my photos for me, and burnt the rest. It's gone, my I-don't-belong-here box, my you're-not-my-real-parents box. It's turning to ash at this very moment, along with Tyme's End.

What was it he said? Don't let anything haunt you.

I can still hear Tyme's End burning. As I make my way home I tilt my chin up and look at the sky. There are tears running down my face and dripping on to my T-shirt, but I'm smiling.

1996.

I.

The last time I saw my dad, I was thirteen.

We were supposed to have a week together actually, just under a week, because he'd got the cheapest ticket he could and it was Wednesday. He'd taken me out, the same as he had the day before and the day before that. It was raining, and we were in the special exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, and I wanted to go home.